Of its 200 million customers, close to 80 percent use Alipay to resolve their payments.

This makes Alipay’s data one of the most reliable indicators of online shopping activity in China. Its annual reports offers many insights into how online shopping has developed in China.

Alipay explosion

In 2012, Beijing shoppers spent an average of 8,131 yuan online, accounting for slightly less than 10 percent of the nation’s online sales.

But this is nothing when compared to the explosive potential of online shopping in third- and fourth-tier cities.

Hainan and the Tibet Autonomous Region have seen a boom in elders converting to online shopping. The number of people aged 55 or older using Alipay grew twelve-fold in 2012, compared to 39 percent nationwide.

At the recently incorporated City of Sansha, which includes the islands of Zhongsha, Xisha and Nansha, more than 1,000 people used Alipay system and spent 167,900, 65,200 and 232,300 yuan from each island respectively.

Mobile leaders

Continued adoption of smartphones may be driving the trend.

Statistics show that the total payments by smartphone users increased by 546 percent in 2012. The number of smartphone users increased by 223 percent.

Alipay has a wireless user base of 4.3 million, most of whom are unmarried males living in smaller cities.

Lhasa is the leader in wireless payments made through Alipay, followed by Linzhi Region, another Tibetan locale. The third place is Nanchong District in Sichuan Province.

Among the Top 10 cities using Alipay for wireless payment, seven are from the less developed western interior, and the remaining three are the cities of Yunfu and Maoming in Guangdong Province and Sanya in Hainan.

Beijingers were less likely to be resolving payment from their smartphones, with only 8 percent using Alipay’s mobile version. The national average is 9.2 percent.

Middle-age splurge

While popular belief says that young adults born in the 1980s and 1990s are the top spenders, Alipay’s statics show that the biggest spenders are those born in the 1960s.

While the ’80s generation accounts for 50 percent of Alipay’s transactions, users born in the 1970s, 1960s and 1950s were the top spenders.

In 2012, the average total payment for shoppers born in the 1980s was 14,000 yuan, while those born in the 1970s and 1960s spent 19,000 and 15,000 yuan respectively.

Young adults born in the 1990s were the weakest spenders, averaging less than 4,00 yuan.

Last year, Alipay enabled users to voluntarily publish their receipts. One purchaser from Wuxi, Jiangsu Province showed off a payment stub for 9.41 million yuan.

This was only the 26th largest purchase made through Alipay in Wuxi last year.

In Beijing, one purchaser showed off a receipt for a sum exceeding 300 million yuan. This was the 7th largest in the capital.

Tmall said it believes that the owner of the stub is a wholesaler.

In Tumusuke, Xinjiang Autonomous Region, male purchasers said they were shopping for their wives.

In the city of Jiayi, Taiwan, the wives reported they were shopping for their husbands.